Pictorials

Gossip

Takaoka Sosuke posts an explanation about his life and recent Twitter remarks

Actor Takaoka Sousuke recently left his agency after making some controversial tweets about Fuji TV and the "Hallyu Wave".

On July 29th, he created a blog entry titled, "The truth based on the facts", where he shed light on some of the skeletons he kept buried in his closet.

Check out his personal story below:

-

"The truth based on the facts":

These are the details regarding the recent sequence of events.

Because of this event, I will talk about it for the first time. Some time after I shot "Pacchigi!", I attempted suicide. Then I recuperated for 6 months.

I was tired because I felt betrayed by many things; particularly about the movie "Concrete", my relationships with friends, and work-related issues. I wasn't able to bear the pressure and the persistent attacks on the internet, and for the first time in my life, my spirit was shattered.

I checked into a mental hospital, and took sleeping medication. I returned to work with my face swollen from taking tranquilizers.

One day, I stopped looking at myself in the mirror and stopped trying to look cool. I didn't care what happened with this career, and this feeling of emptiness continued.

Some time later, the things I said at the campaign for "Pacchigi!" in Korea were published differently from the truth. When I returned to Japan, the media and internet labeled me as 'Anti-Japanese'. It was at that time that my hate for the media took root within me.

Then, the identity of my girlfriend was revealed to the public, and I was insulted again. Even if I denied it [to make them stop writing], they persistently created articles about me.

Due to the impatience of people not understanding the truth, my depression returned.

After awhile, I decided to marry my girlfriend, who understood me the most. But I completely hated the media who continued to bash me.

Naturally, we didn't want to publicize our wedding ceremony.

They wrote that our wedding was full of gang members. Even though we made happy memories, I ended up being given yet another [bad] label.

In my day-to-day life, I stopped thinking, and couldn't socialize with people the way I wanted to. One day, I wasn't able to take care of myself. I drowned myself in alcohol and erased my memories.

I was okay with quitting my job.
I wasn't feeling alive, and I lived every day with exhaustion.

I really wanted all the media to drop dead.

This condition continued for years, and I went back to work without curing my illness. I was shaking from the tension, but then I met my colleagues in a baseball drama. I spent every day with them and due to the busy schedule, I forgot about my illness.

I got carried away, and my wife was away with work, so I went out drinking every night.

All of a sudden, due to my carelessness, I returned to the lifestyle that the media made a fuss about before.

-

My next enemy was panic disorder. When I stood in front of people, I couldn't breathe and I couldn't stop sweating. During a shoot, my body froze from the 'start call', and sweat wouldn't stop dripping down my face. I became frightened of people's eyes, and battled with this pain everywhere I went.

At stage performances, I felt like I was dying many times over. I was sweating with nervousness, and I felt pain from standing in front of people. But I stood firm to not make the same mistake.

That lifestyle was painful, and before I realized it, I was taking stabilizers again. My body was at its limit.
I took time off from work for a long period of time; knowing it would be the end if this continued, I made an unreasonable request to my wife and my company and fled overseas.

Before going overseas, I attended a stage greeting. I decided not to take stabilizers since I was going to take a long break from work. As expected, once I got on stage, I couldn't breathe and the sweating wouldn't stop. I couldn't see anything in front of me, and fell from the stage.

Showered with countless camera flashes, I got scared by the gaze of the audience. When I came to, people's feet from the front row were right in front of my eyes.

The media questioned if that was a flashback from using drugs.

After returning from overseas, my condition didn't change - rather, things got worse. I had to vomit after every cut.

I could not take it anymore.

I was going to make my next job the last.

I was really going to quit if things didn't work out this time.

This was during Mishima Yukio's stage performance, "Kinkakuji". I was given a role of a character who was fighting an incurable disease, who kept on going in that condition. A person who had to live with that unchangeable fact. A positive role.

The role started to connect with me.

In the beginning, it was difficult.

But while we were going around the country, there was a moment when something penetrated in my heart, and I noticed myself standing firm, to the point where I forgot about using stabilizers.

The time I have spent and the time I was bashed; it's an unchangeable reality.
I was free to choose how I wanted to live from here on out.
And I was able to become positive for the first time in several years.

I was able to remember myself from 6 years ago, when I was bad at performing but was full of confidence.

I'm okay now. Acting is fun.

Then March 11th came.

The moment I fell out of depression, Japanese citizens were thrown into a state of mental despair.

Many people became victims, and the economy crashed. People were threatened with the fear of radiation and they were scared for Japan's children.

The impact of the event shocked me incredibly,but I was able to be positive, knowing that I still had a future. I'm able to live now, so anything can be done from here on.

Recently, if I can be frank, I am more strong-minded.

During my illness, I had support from a tremendous number of people.
This time, it is my turn to make people positive.

Being in a flamboyant industry, I was even given a cute wife, but lived these 6 and a half years at the bottom.

I am now able to firmly look forward.

I wanted to cheer people up by telling them that there is no rain that doesn't stop and no night that doesn't turn into day. Surely, it'll be okay. If you think negatively, you get depressed. Those feelings, it's something you choose for yourself.

Surely, it'll be okay. That's what I thought.

It's something I've experienced myself. The cases are different, but I know how to uplift feelings, and I can cooperate.

Reports about the March 11th incident were only good in the beginning. Then they became hypocritical.

They turned their eyes away from the radiation problem, and put restraints on things that were inconvenient to them.

What these people were doing was just as it was before.

There were many reports that weren't delivered to the citizens. Instead, they aired irrelevant foreign dramas, and on the morning news, they reported biased information.

I became suspicious of this country.

With this flow in my mindset, I made those recent remarks.

I couldn't tolerate it anymore.

The things that built up inside me gushed out.

Again, all this was during the "Kinkakuji" performance. I started to remember many things from that time.

With courage, I wanted to recover this country. I wanted people to find the light of hope.

The people on the outside shouldn't teach lies.

If I could make a remark myself, I thought I should do it.

During the crisis in this country, people were put in a state of confusion. I thought it was really sickening that [the media] would deceive and show bias at a time like this.

I'm sorry to those who took it the wrong way, but this time, it would make me happy if you could understand.

By no means did I say anything to criticize Korea. I want you to understand that this was a sense of protest to those leading Japan.

At this rate, this country will be hopeless.

This entire incident stemmed from these back-stories. As you can tell just from this incident, the media repeats falsehoods. They only write at their own convenience.

Thank you for reading this long message. It was a summary, so I'm sorry if it was difficult to read.

I can see the light. Let's live together.

For the pride of the Japanese. We can still make it. But there is no time.

Comments

Login With...

0

This may have happen year 2011 and the years before that. I am so happy that he had recovered and am looking forward that he makes as many great movies as he had before. I believe that he is such a good actor and that he has lot of potentials.

What happened to him or whatever he said before, I understand and somewhat agree with him. He is japanese and japanese people are known for being honorable, honest and values the idea of patriotism. He is just expressing his opinion, and that he still values his country and its welfare and maybe would just like to suggest that instead of patronizing other countries, they have to focus first on their own. With this, I am somewhat agreeing, because being a non-japanese, I would like to do the same with my own country to prioritize its own, but I just can't help ignoring the fact that there are some country, like japan, that produces great dramas and great movies, and very good actors, that I have grown addicted to watching them all the free time I've got.

Takaoka Sosuke is one of my favorite Japanese Actors. In addition to that, what he had said or done before made me admire him more because it made me realize how much of a passionate actor he is. He does not have a shallow personality, he have something else deeper, something that you rarely see in other celebrities, something really admirable. I just hope that he continues to do the good work he had started and fully recover from what he had suffered before. He may have a lot of critics but there are still a lot of fans who believes in him and in his talent.